It might not be the peak of the race itself, but it was absolutely the peak of the IndyCar formula at Indy - those cars were absolutely insane and I miss them so much.
They were fast, beautiful and had a sound like nothing else in racing. CART brought me into the sport. At some point it looked like CART could go worldwide on a grand scale. It was that good.
Stan Fox's crash is so bittersweet, to think he recovered from that, but never ran Indy again, only to die in a road crash years later. RIP Stan Fox...
I think as far as excitement and prestige go, NBC and Penske have done a TON to restore Indy. However, the 1995 edition might be the CRAZIEST 500 in the history of the race.
i disagree the crowds were 400,000 to 500,000 now its barely 300,000, look at pole day this sunday looks there were 5,000 people there what a joke, 1995 was the last 500 absolutley nothing has changed, Penske is cheap SOB the purse has gone down why everything else is going up,Penske hasn't done SHIT!
Where are the fans, though? I was watching qualifying this year and there was hardly anyone there. Contrast that with the 250,000-300,000 they used to get before the split. Plus attendance and TV ratings are still way down for all races, including the 500.
@@mkay1957 Did they really get 300k for qualifying? That’s crazy. I did read there were around 80k there to watch quali this year, and that was a record over the last 15+ years, I think
@@mkay1957 You are absolutely correct! Just take a look at any of the pole day qualifying videos from the 1950's through the 1970's and the place was packed. In fact, many people who couldn't get Race Tickets would go to qualifying B/C it was, to them, just as exciting as Race Day. Mr. Tony Hulman knew exactly how to run the Speedway and all that the "Month of May" entailed. T.G. (grand son?) Not so much. In fact if the 500 wasn't such a huge piece of Memorial Day Americana, T.G. could easily have strangled the Indianapolis 500 Mile Race to "Death."
Great video! Villeneuve had me fooled for a long time that year. He kept asking me to reheat and redesign the grips on his wheel. BUT, after a while I noticed that when I handed him the wheel for fine-tuning the grip, he didn't move the material at all...hmmm. That's when I figured out that he was just using up my time so the OTHER drivers wouldn't get any fine-tuning or be able to get their wheel converted over to PersonaGrip. In '95, I already had a year under my belt using my new, 4"-wide 94M material...prior to that I was plastic welding my 1"-wide strips. However, in some cases, the welds would separate after hard use, and a driver complained suggesting that I either fix it, or he wouldn't use PersonaGrip anymore. That's when I invested in new tooling to extrude the new 4"-wide 94M material that could ENCAPSULATE the entire underlisting to avoid separation. Anyway, my Ser.#152 for Scott Brayton shows up nicely early in the video (1:21s), and you can see how I accommodated his shuffle steering method with material extending upward beyond his Home Position. At 9:20s, you can see Ser.#151 on Michael's car...earlier that year, I made him Ser.#143, but he wanted an oval-specific design for the 500.
@@Demise90Racing, you're more than welcome. Now that I'm older and PersonaGrip has opened doors to seeing things that many never get to see, I feel it's my honor to be able share some of those key moments that often go unnoticed...and, boy are there stories!
In my opinion, this was one of the more controversial Indy 500. Along with Jacques draconian 2-lap penalty, Bobby Rahal would receive a stop and go penalty that would put him down the field, where he would eventually finish 3rd. Rahal would verbally state his displeasure with the USAC officials, as he had a chance to win the 500 a second time. Scott Goodyear on the other hand, clearly made a bone-headed mistake (Kind of wish Goodyear would've won the 97 race, but that one was a controversial race, too). It's just impressive that Jacques was able to overcome the penalty and win, Clearly showed his then talent, as he was the runner-up in his rookie year in 94, and was the only driver still on the lead lap with Little Al that year.
I’ll say this once again. I love this channel. You are doing great work. Solid narration, and you always pick good races. Loving every thing you do from nascar to Indy.
Nice to revisit this one! It's too bad Jacques entered again later on. If he had just left it, he would have had a record of never finishing lower than second in the 500.
I totally respect your comment Jeffrey. But, for me anyways, the real Golden Era was 1950's through the end of the 1980's. (Maybe even 1992 & 1992, as well.)
I'll add that ABC-TV Sports was marvelous with its coverage. I like how the announcing crew were measured in the pace of their speaking; all the while keeping it infused with excitement, with their commentary; unlike the competitive _yak-fest_ it has become with NBC-TV's announcing crew.
Man thanks for posting this. Those CART formula IndyCars were so great looking and the sound they made was so cool! Even the IRL used the CART formila cars in 1996 when Arie set the lIndy Lap speed record that only now is in danger of being surpaased.
I'm wondering what a current car could do with road course boost levels. I'm also wondering how the super capacitor next year is going to work on ovals or if they'd have to qualify without it.
@@danielhenderson8316 Lets hope they allow the hybrid for qualifying next May. I understand they may not have access to 900+ bhp, but let's see what happens. I am sure there will be lots of testing before they make any decisions.
Awesome race. I remember this vividly. I was also totally baffled about how Jacques kept getting laps back., but it makes a lot more sense looking back now.
after going through the fours hours of footage I couldn't find either how Jacques got his laps back, but there was one yellow where Paul Page mentioned that Villenuve was only one lap down
#1 is a product of JV having two laps deleted electronically rather than being parked in the pit for two laps. Jacques was still third on the road. A caution came out, the leaders pitted, and JV did not. There were no wavearounds, so JV restarted in front of the leaders. Stefan Johannson brought out the yellow only a couple of laps later with his punctured tire, and JV was able to make up the lap completely. #2 was the product of the Ford engine getting excellent fuel mileage, and JV risking it by running extra lean. He caught the yellow for Ribeiro perfectly timed where the leaders had pitted and JV had not yet. The comparison I like to refer to is Luyendyk who had one of the fastest cars and went a lap down, but spent the entire race fighting to earn the lap back because his Menard Buick engine was thirsty and he couldn't possibly stretch the fuel the way Jacques was able to.
Thanks for covering this! I didn't start watching Indy until 2018 so these historical videos allow me to know what the history of all of these amazing eras were like.
Something I love doing is finding a playlist on UA-cam of the older CART races and run them on my TV while I go to sleep. Since I can't sleep to dead quiet, at least I'll enjoy myself while.
Villeneuve jumped ship at the right time, too. Winning the IndyCar championship at the end of ‘95, then moved to Formula One in ‘96. Just in time before the split.
Crazy fact about Fox's crash: He actually didn't break his legs in the accident. He had head injuries from being hit by some of the debris from his car and that's what ended his career. He was in a coma for 5 (i think) days and also had to have surgery to remove a blood clot from his brain. He was unfortunately killed in 2000, in a head on collision on a highway, in New Zealand.
Exactly correct @sennadesillva. Stan was a really good guy and he used to bring many people afflicted with "Closed Head Trauma" to the Speedway during the month of May and treat them to guided tours of Gasoline Alley so that they could see the side of this Great Event of Americana in a way that they may never experienced! RIP Stan, you were "The Hero" to many of my friends who were USAC Midget Racing Fans where you left you mark in racing history!
I'd say goodyear was lucky enough to be stopped scored. Most people who ignoring black flag like that would got banned for next race aside from getting disqualified and also hefty amount of fine too.
@@homeperson11244 I have believed from that fateful day until now that Scott Goodyear should have won this race. He planned his last restart the way that former greats of the Indy 500 would have done it. IMO, the error was not Scott's it was who ever the H3LL was "driving" the pace car. He's crawling along at, what 110 mph?!? At any rate, a ridiculously SLOW pace and he should have been turning on to Pit Entrance by the time Scott and the field pulled on to the front stretch. I know that staying out and ignoring the "Black Flag" was the death knell for Our Canadian Hero but, as usual USAC timing and scoring, together with an "Asleep at the Wheel" Pace Car Driver(?) absolutely robbed victory from the very driver who deserved to win His first Indianapolis 500. "He got jobbed" is too mild a description...He was "Screwed!"
@@timford3599 which is why i think that's why Goodyear wasn't punished even more for that accident, USAC cucked it out and the way they had less respect after previous year's Penske domination. Whilst that somewhat true, had Goodyear serve the penalty, he would be atleast 6th or 7th which while it was still heartbreaking, he could be battle for 5th in which point was still counted towards CART Championship.
@@timford3599 This is a braindead comment since the official investigation showed the pace car was driving at... get this... the speed the pacecar was supposed to be driving at as per the rules and regulations on the day. So no, the pace car wasn't going slow, the pace car was going the correct speed as per the rules. Goodyear tried to cheat and lost. Too bad so sad. Maybe he shouldn't have cheated, he probably could've won on pure pace. But he did cheat, and Villeneuve followed the rules, and he rightfully won. They all knew the rules, that's why no one else passed Villeneuve on the restart when he checked up. Every other driver in the field knew the rule was you had to remain behind the pace car on the restart until it was in pit road. Every single driver remembered that rule, EXCEPT Goodyear, who conveniently forgot it and gained a 10 second advantage because of it. If everyone else in a car that day remembered the rule and Goodyear didn't, Goodyear didn't deserve to win.
the CART series was actually as interesting to me as F1 at the time...they had built a legitimate open wheel series that attracted the likes of Emmo and Mansell and others...Tony George destroyed the race and I have never come back to it...after never having missed a race in my life....Today indycar racing is so meh....that it is hard to believe it still exists....
It's actually gotten better man. There's alot of talent and good racing. Trust me I agree with you on almost everything accept about the last 3 years it has definitely picked back up.
@@anthonypforr6463 The last time I watched there was something that had viewers/fans vote for who should get some kind of power boost....that really turned me off...but I will check it out again....but like F1, I have been watching a ton of old CART races online!!! Thanks!!!
@@anthonypforr6463 I guess you never know when you’re in a “golden age” but the mid 80’s to late 90’s was really something….F1 had Senna Prost Mansell Piquet Hakkinen and a supporting cast that included Berger, Alesi, and (dare I say it) Brundle….CART had Andretti x 2, Emmo, Sullivan, the house of Unser, Mears, and the Euro invasion….AND we had IMSA in its heyday AND group C in Europe….it was a more civilized time….btw….and in spite of all I’ve said on this post….wow what an amazing qualifying this AM in Monaco!!!
This was the last year of the older type of the 500. It was not at all unusual for early leaders of the race to be already lapping backmarkers within 10-15 laps of green-flag racing, and there was frequently a ton of attrition -- if more than 15 cars out of the original 33 survived all 500 miles, it was a great year for reliability. Nowadays, you'll see 20-23 cars on the lead lap even in the late stages of the 500, and 27-29 still running at the checkered flag's appearance. It is much more competitive racing these days.
Tony George was planning the IRL back in 1991 years before Andrew Craig came on the CART board. However he wanted a new engine rule put in place for the Indy 500 back then.
@Robert Musgrave Tony was just so misguided. Focused on the wrong shit all the time. They were literally racing ovals in Japan, Germany, UK, and Brazil. Open wheel Indycar racing was spreading and he just had to mess with it. And yet some will say "he saved indycar racing." Yet all he did was bankrupt everyone, copy CART. Then sell it back to one of the Cart owners? What a dumbass
I was there for this great race. Seated in middle of turn three I saw all re-starts happened about 1/3 of the way into turn 3. Even at that point the pace car barely exited from the racing surface before leader flew by. On the last re-start Goodyear accelerated before even arriving at turn three, no way that the pace car would not be passed. The crowd screamed, they all knew he had lost the race. The field always gave the pace car the same space at half distance on back straight. Goodyear flat blew it, pace car held consistent speed and mid straight starting gap all day.
I was there as well with my friends. We were at the top row of the old grandstands inside of turn one. Those have since been torn down to make way for the road course. I remember the last restart and seeing Scott Goodyear come flying past through turn one with a HUGE lead and daylight between him and Villeneuve and telling the fellow standing next to me "Something's wrong! NOBODY gets that big of a lead on a restart!" Turns out I was right and the black flag came out for Scott as noted in the video. He ignored it and paid the price. Overall it was a weird day because it seemed whoever led the race caught some sort of bad karma. Luyendyk with possible engine problems and causing a yellow flag flipping someone The Bird, Villeneuve not knowing he was the leader, passing the pace car, and getting penalized, Andretti clouting the wall trying to pass slower traffic, Herta and Pruett getting into crashes, and finally Goodyear shooting himself in the foot passing the pace car. PS, if you watch the last restart you can see Goodyear lay a patch of rubber on the backstretch heading into turn three. 😧
I also sat in turn 3 at this race in the middle of the turn on the inside and couldn't see that much of the track and basicly watched the cars enter the turn and exit the turn and remember watching Jimmy Vasser hit the outside wall as he was exiting turn 3 late in the race.
Thank you. I've been doing that as I really like that VHS effect. Surprisingly those transitions are part of a horror film pack, but it just fits with these 90's races.
One correction that ABC missed as well. Boesel grenaded his engine and oiled down the track, which is what most probably caused Pruett to hit the wall.
I was at this race and never understood why Goodyear jumped the start like that. He had enough car that J.V. never would've been able to catch him. Real shame. Not to mention that I had Goodyear in my office pool that year......FML!!!
We were there too. They evidently were having problems with the pace car. It wasn't getting up to speed on the restarts. They basically took this race from Goodyear. Yes he passed the pace car because it was going way too slow
Tony George's destruction of American open wheel racing has still not recovered. He is finally out of the picture and Roger Penske has done wonders to continue the rebuilding of IndyCar. While I really enjoy IndyCar, the series and the Indy500 are not at CART standards.
Hit the nail right on the head. I was a CART super fan up until the break up. Switched to F1 and only started watching Indycar again in the last few years.
I agree. I used to NEVER MISS a CART race. Now I don’t even catch the Indy 500 unless I remember which is rare I switched to F1 and endurance racing like LeMans
I used to go to Mid-Ohio every year, hit Road America a few times, and Indy twice. Now, I haven’t even watched an IRL/whatever it is now on TV in decades.
I didn't even watch this race, I was busy that day, but I was following Indycat that year. May 1994 got me interested in motorsports after a 5 year absence....living under a rock....Senna died and Jacques finished 2nd at Indy. I remembered Senna but missed the glory years, I remeber him as a controversial young driver....and I thought that Jacques was actually Gilles' brother, also named Jacques..."oh cool he finally got a good car".....no that's Gilles' son...."Damn! That's awesome! He's going to win next year." ....and I fully believed that, to the point that I felt I didn't need to watch the race anyway, I already knew who was going to win....and well...
Seats have been added on the outside of the track and on the inside of the front stretch. But race doesn't sell out anymore except for in 2016. 100th running.
After my eardrums just took a beating with the NBC announcing crew from the 2023 Indy 500 TV shout-fest, it is nice to return here to get some snippets of the incomparable quality of Paul Page doing the announcing duties with a past Indy 500.
The last real Indy 500... Then greed and stupidity resulted in, basically, a spec series. But on a side note, this year's Indy 500 has already been insane, and will be more so by the end of it.
I don't know if it was the best 500. But it is a great one. That is my favorite era of the series, love the cars, and the Players team was such a great paint scheme.
This was the first time I watched the Indy 500. At that time I was 10 years old and I could watch it by SBT's Brazilian broadcast. I remember of each detail of that race: since Stan Fox and Eddie Cheever Jr. crash at start, the stupid decision of Scott Goodyear in overtake the pace car before of the restart 11 laps to go, and until twin checkred flag for Jacques Villeneuve.
Kind of ironic that when the IRL was formed, one of the complaints from the "purists" was that 'them durn furriners', especially 'them durn Braziallians' were taking over American racing. They said we need to go back to the roots of American racing, American drivers on ovals. So here we are. Last time an American won the 500 was Rossi in 2016 and the current Indy Car schedule has 12 road courses, just 4 ovals and my two favorite ovals, Milwaukee and Nazareth are gone forever. So other than diminish the popularity of open wheel racing, what did Tony George accomplish?
So true. I was at the 93 race and many around me booed Emmo. It was disgusting. The anti American sentiment stoked by Tony. Racers and racing are universal the winner to be celebrated.
@@ltjjenkins It wasn't any Tony George anti-US sentiment that the crowd was booing Emmo, it was refusing to drink the milk after winning the 1993 Indy 500. He'd probably be OK if he drank the milk and then promoted farm. The crowd still booed him in 2008 driving the pace car. It wasn't because he was a for-r-ner...
@@danielhenderson8316 I was there. And by the way did you boo rahal in 86 when he sipped beer before the milk- a labeled sponsor before the milk. Check the tape.
@@ltjjenkins Nope. He still drank the milk. For you to be correct, you'd have to explain why Emerson wasn't booed in 1988 and why Arie Luyendyk wasn't booed in 1990 for your xenophobic claim to hold water (or milk).
This Indy 500 wasn't the only exciting race that day as at the Coke 600 in Charlotte, there were 32 lead changes. That Coke 600 ended when Bobby Labonte spun Dale Earnhardt with 16 laps to go & basically ran a race of maximum fuel conservation to the end for his first Cup Series win & JGR's first Coke 600 win.
Folks forget that the CART cars were still used in the 96 season and that was the year all of the records were broke. 97 was the first year for the open wheel NASCAR.
In the last few years you can't fault the quality and competition, but Indy still desperately misses chassis variety and real engine competition. One day...
@AJBa83; You have thrown the Dart and Hit the Bulls Eye. I've been a die hard fan of this race since 1961 (as well as an ardent student of almost all things Indy 500 ever since) and , IMO the very reason that had always made the 500 such a unique and exciting event was the fact that almost all of the teams brought a "One Off" Race car design and different engines. Since 1997 "The Indy Racing League" became a Spec Series and it changed things forever, not always for the better.
@@timford3599 Agreed. Build a car within specifications and run it. That brought about the NOVI.s, the STP Turbine cars, front engine, rear engine, front wheel drive, rear wheel drive, four wheel drive, and a host of other innovations to the race. Some were more successful than others, but it always brought interest and excitement to the 500.
Right now, the only manufacturer that fine with chassis competition is Dallara. When they were taking bids on the DW12, everyone else wanted exclusivity.
Man looking at this, I'm happy Indycar allows lapped cars between the Pace Car and the leader to get waved by. It always should be the leader who does the restart
As for the field, throughout the early-1990s, past, present and future F1 champions joined IndyCars' greatest.... and thanks to the IRL and CART off track mismanagement, it all came to a screeching halt with the split!
I'm not up on the CART Indy 500 rules of the day, but after such a jumbled field beyond the first row, as well as the carnage almost immediately, wouldn't it have been better to have red flagged the race and have had a totally new start AFTER THE TRACK HAD BEEN PROPERLY CLEARED AND CLEANED?? THANKS!
Today the standards are much higher for being in formation at the start. Despite being part of the CART season, the Indy 500 had a unique set of rules as it was sanctioned by USAC still. But once the green flag was waived the race is official and won't be restarted. The only time CART did a restart like that was the 1996 US 500 at Michigan.That race became CART's race to compete with the Indy 500 when the IRL took over the Indy 500 in 1996. But in that scenario the cars wrecked before making it to the line, therefore not officially starting the race.
I wouldn't say this was the last REAL Indy 500, but I will say it was that the distinct character of the race changed after this. That's hard to explain but the feel definitely changed after this. Things sort of came back in the 2000's and it's OK now, but I think the cars are ugly and the spec chassis concept just doesn't give it the same appeal.
@crusherbmx, Every word of your comment is absolutely true. I had the most sinking feeling between the 1995 & 96 races. I t seemed to me that The Indianapolis 500 had lost its soul and lost its allure. As much as I have loved everything about the 500 for over 60 years, it just didn't feel the same during the "Split Years." Back before ESPN quit being a great sports network they did a special about "The Split." It followed families torn apart due to their allegiance to either the IRL or Cart. It was an excellent documentary and it pretty much summed up my conflicted feelings at the time. In the end, like AJ Foyt I cast my lot to the IRL, not b/c of T.G. but rather in spite of him. IMO it was the "Bone Head" move of the Twentieth Century (Sports Wise.) PS, I'm pretty sure that it's still available on UA-cam. It's definitely worth a watch. Very well written and produced!
🔥🔥🔥🔥 Wow!!! That was spectacular 🤯🤯🤯 what an incredible race. Just unreal. The absolute jaw dropping drama a side, the series was more interesting due to more technical involvement (Penske use to make own chassis) and the variability of engines (Buick V6 2 valve) 😎😎😎 thanks for sharing 👍👍👍💪💪💪
'95 was one of the peak events however the recent past has been amping up interest and excitement that 'should' continue with the updated power units coming into play...would like to see more entrants vying for the grid though somewhat improbable
That is one of the most heart wrenching stories of the 500, 1960's to near the end of the 1970's. Lloyd Ruby was one of the greatest drivers in the storied history of the Indy 500! Good call Ian!
This was the last real 500. It wasn't difficult to pick a side when FTG took his ball and went home. Even after his experiment failed and what was left of CART/ CCWS merged with The IRL, it was way too late, the good name of Indy had been forever ruined by the inheritor. Roger Penske has made it a bit better, but we'll never get back to 1995.
My dad was there on the infield between turn 3 and 4 and he says the pacecar slowed up due to the huge gap that Goodyear had out between the two on the backstretch.....tough to say but at least a good Canadian boy won anyhow!
one of those drivers who burns very brightly , but quickly fades away . doesn't discount any of his immense achievements in those short few years at his peak.
This is probably the single race I have re-watched the most times in my life. I know a lot of people are bothered by how it ended, and that's understandable, but let's remember that USAC's officiating was a joke for many years and 1995 was no exception. Left to rule over just one top-level race all year, USAC always seemed to want to play god when those "wayward" CART teams rolled back into town and had to play by their rules in order to play in their sandbox, and 1995 just happened to be both the final year of the two organizations' uneasy truce and the year USAC was itching the hardest to mash that "smite" button and do some arbitrary damage. Scott Goodyear wasn't the first to get slapped by a questionable call that day...the problem for him was that he was the last, so he didn't have a chance to recover from it. But considering both Villenueve and Rahal, who ended up first and third, had also bounced back from dumb USAC calls, the end result wasn't nearly as unfair as it could have been.
I don't see how anyone can say Goodyear got a questionable call. He barely missed the pace car and completely messed up the restart. Anyone could see he gained an unfair advantage over Villeneuve because of it and he broke the rules.
@@CharlesFreck well, a couple things. In the end, it doesn’t make Goodyear totally blameless (you can actually see the rubber he lays down with his rolling burnout, so it’s clear his nerves get the better of him) but on the other hand: -the pace car took off and drove away, and was well off the racing line by the time Goodyear caught it. CART’s restart procedure was more lenient in terms of when the pace car becomes irrelevant, so to some extent this is an artifact of the two sanctioning bodies problem. - The problem could have been solved without upending the results. Even forgetting about the pace car itself, that was a huge jump Goodyear got on the cars behind him. It’s reasonable to say it was not a clean start, but it’s easy to imagine either of CART’s starters (Nick Fornoro until 1993, or Jim Swintal at this point) waving off the restart and making them do it again. Instead Duane Sweeney gave the green anyway, and then USAC waited a lap or two to decide to penalize him. - Goodyear didn’t help himself by staying out, as it happens, but Steve Horne was under the impression USAC had given back the two laps they took away from Villeneuve earlier, and given that assumption, rolling the dice and hoping for a similar act of mercy starts to make sense. Unfortunately for Horne and Goodyear, that wasn’t what had happened with Villeneuve anyway.
@de-faultde-fault6847 I would not say it was off the racing line, Goodyear misses the pace car by a few cm. And yes, they should've cancelled the restart. But they didn't. But the fact is that Goodyear knew he was in the wrong. Because instead of saying "I thought the pace car was going faster" or complaining about the way it was handled, he made claims that were easily proven to be lies (saying he saw the green indicating it was okay to restart). The fact he lied shows he knew for a fact he'd broken the rules, because if he thought he was in the right he wouldn't have needed to lie. He got nervous and jumped the restart and it cost him the win. That's a part of racing, you can't choke 7 laps from the end of one the 3 most prestigious races in the world if you're of the quality required to win. In the same moment he choked and lost, Villeneuve had the presence of mind to realise he needed to stay behind the pace car, despite the fact it meant dropping 10 seconds to the race leader. That's why he won and Goodyear lost, being able to make the right decision under immense pressure.
1996 was actually the last race with the cool engines and cars even though it was an IRL race. Current version of the race leaves a lot to be desired. Spec cars and spec engines just don't do it for me.
My dad took me to this race. I was 18 years old and had no idea my first and only Indy 500 would be the last of the real Indy cars to run the race. Tony George ruined Indy Car in 1996 with his new league only running on ovals and slower NA engines. Glad I saw the best before it was too late.
What a great race. I remember being on the edge of my seat watching this. After watching this again I have to wonder though, WTF was Arie Luyendyk doing at the end? Dude was right up JVs ass and then passes him at the finish?
This was one of the few races I missed since the late '80's but I watched it live from home. I have no idea what Goodyear was thinking by going when he did. Nonetheless, I was so hoping he would have won, since I did not care for Jacques nor the team he drove for. So many crashes that I had forgotten about over the years. Also, what the hell was Tony thinking that the series needed that it did not already have? Big-time sponsors, star drivers, still bigger than Nascar in 1995. Then it went to shit.
geeezuz his legs were hanging out that looked like F! in the 70's or even 60's as a sport freak I really would have been pissed at luyendyk ruining JV beautiful photo #1 finish, been nice to hear the final interview of JV
I will never understand what Goodyear was thinking when he blew past that pace car. At that time he had been competing in American racing for a long time so he totally knew he shouldn't do that. What a stupid way to lose this race. I am still a little amazed JV kept a cool head and hit the brakes to avoid doing a dumb thing. He never struck me as a particularly smart driver. On this day he was definitely smarter than Goodyear though, lol.
@@jimr549 But isn't it drivers/teams responsibility to watch that the pace car is out of the way before going full speed. At least as an European that's what I see happening in F1 where they radio the driver to tell that the safety car is in the pits
It’s definitely the peak of the Indy 500. It’ll never get bigger than this race no matter how successful the current Indycar championship gets because even if the series becomes more popular than it was in 1995, they’re now racing aeroscreen cars which are just lame/inferior compared to pure open-wheel open-cockpit cars.
From my perspective, 1995 was the end of the Indy 500 as the greatest race. When it switched to IRL it became just another race. Up until 1995 the drivers were household names. After 1995 I couldn't tell you any of the names of the drivers. They went from faster cars to slower cars. It should go down in history as professional sports biggest blunders of all time. Cart was an awesome series and now it's gone. I don't even watch racing anymore, NASCAR sucks and now Formula 1 sucks. I'd rather watch reruns of when racing wasn't a bunch of limp wristed pussies. At least there's still the Isle of Man TT
In addition, there were 50 entries vying for the 33 spots in 1995. In 2023, there were 34 entries for the Indy 500. '[sarcasm] Such heightened drama on whom would make the field in 2023.'
@@bloqk16 ....All that money....time and expense to send a guy and his team packin. I understand and love the 500 and the series but it makes more sense to let them race instead of have this artificial made up gimmicky shit. I HATE what racing has become .
the thing with Penske was that their chassis sucked at this track but they were not aware of it because of the 500I engine. They tried PC23 chassis in 1995 and it was as bad as the newer PC24.
If you read Al Unser Jr's biography, after they rehired Paul Tracy, he did a post season test at Indy with a 95 chassis and a 94 floor and went 231 on his first lap. Turned out that the Penske team didn't correctly level out their garage floor so all of their suspension settings were being put in incorrectly. It's also why they couldn't get any speed out of the Lola's even with cashing in a favor with Bobby Rahal to help them out.
@@danielhenderson8316 The other detail that the team engineers said years ago via Nigel Beresford on the Autosport forum, and which Al's book confirms, is Emerson had sent them in a setup direction with a stiff front roll bar. It worked great at Phoenix. But doing this at Indy caused a great deal of understeer. So the team piled on front wing, which overpowered the effect of the rollbar, but also caused oversteer on turn-in. The result is drivers who no longer trust the car, and they never thought to change the roll bar until qualifying had been completed.
I remember this well, it really solidified my view of Tony George being corrupt, even before the split. I believe The pace car waved Villeneuve by, not the other way around. Then to rectify it, they blamed his team and penalty'd him 2 laps; effectively making him +1 - 2 = 1 lap down. He didn't pass it twice. Good call on the 2 Scotts passing the pace car the 1st time around. I believe to rectify this, the pace car was instructed to slow down too much, to deliberately penalize Scott Goodyear the next time. Bobby Unser even said it went too slow, and even seen in the footage at 18:44, Goodyear had slowed and distanced the field alot, but then you see the pace car entering turn 4 at a snail's pace, when it should have been near the pits by then. I won't call the green flag waiver as part of a conspiracy, as he was Consistently doing a lousy job all race.
That wasn't bad luck, controversial, or a conspiracy to get Goodyear out of the winners circle. It was dude being a goddamn idiot and clearly breaking a well-known rule! I always forget Jacque won the 500. He's mostly remembered as a f1 world champion who turned into a great big weirdo 😜
No controversy! Goodyear blew off the pace car. It doesn't matter if the pace car was too slow. He knew the rules and took off way too soon. He deserved the penalty.
Ari's engine issue is typical. The car would have been fine with the misfire if it never had to stop. The minute it comes in and stops, it burns a piston and it's never the same.
The Indy 500 is nowhere near the level it hit in the mid 90's prior to the split. People now really cannot grasp the difference. While the TV numbers and current qualifying format really paint a pretty good picture at the stark difference in popularity of the event between then and now, it's really difficult to grasp how popular the Indy 500 was by 1995. It really isn't close when you consider a few facts. Primarily was the scheduling of all of the activities leading up to the race: Pole day drew crowds of 200K regularly. Bump day often drew in 60k-100k people. Let's just say, the Indy GP that currently kicks off activities in May has yet to draw that many people. Additionally it should be noted that the current qualifying format for the 500 was installed to try and "raise excitement again for qualifying" for the 500. That excitement had long been dead since the infamous Tony George single handedly destroyed Indycar racing. As mentioned above, the TV numbers bear that out. Prior to the split, the Indy 500 ALWAYS beat the Daytona 500 for TV viewership and never had a nielsen rating below 8.5. Then the split happened and the numbers dropped precipitously. They continued to do so until hitting their current low level. More importantly, those numbers really do reflect the pulse of the race. In 1995, every major sports media outlet sent reporters to the race and it was difficult to get media passes. The race was so popular that tickets for the race often sold out within a week of the previous years running of the race. You had to get on a waitlist for tickets and it often took a couple of years before you got a chance to buy tickets. That's how popular Indy was. So yeah, it's not even close to that now. But we can always hope that will change.
The city itself was more into it than they are now. People would decorate their houses and have racing memorabilia in their garages, and you'd see last year's pace cars driving around town. By the time I moved away in 2011, all of that was gone, and in my few visits back in May it has been a mere shadow of what it was in the mid 90s and before. At this point, I struggle to even watch it. It's no longer a festival of speed. It feels obligatory, run for tradition's sake and not much more. /curmudgeon
If that numbskull driving(?) the pace car would have known what the H3LL he was supposed to be doing then the "Grunts @ USAC" wouldn't have had ANY reason to steal the victory from Scott Goodyear. USAC totally "Screwed" him!
It wasn't *that* much of a shock that the Penske cars failed to qualify. The chassis itself from the season before was actually pretty bad. It was the fact that they had 200bhp more than the next closest car that got them as fast as they were.
It might not be the peak of the race itself, but it was absolutely the peak of the IndyCar formula at Indy - those cars were absolutely insane and I miss them so much.
They were fast, beautiful and had a sound like nothing else in racing. CART brought me into the sport. At some point it looked like CART could go worldwide on a grand scale. It was that good.
Stan Fox's crash is so bittersweet, to think he recovered from that, but never ran Indy again, only to die in a road crash years later. RIP Stan Fox...
I think as far as excitement and prestige go, NBC and Penske have done a TON to restore Indy. However, the 1995 edition might be the CRAZIEST 500 in the history of the race.
i disagree the crowds were 400,000 to 500,000 now its barely 300,000, look at pole day this sunday looks there were 5,000 people there what a joke, 1995 was the last 500 absolutley nothing has changed, Penske is cheap SOB the purse has gone down why everything else is going up,Penske hasn't done SHIT!
Where are the fans, though? I was watching qualifying this year and there was hardly anyone there. Contrast that with the 250,000-300,000 they used to get before the split. Plus attendance and TV ratings are still way down for all races, including the 500.
@@mkay1957 Did they really get 300k for qualifying? That’s crazy.
I did read there were around 80k there to watch quali this year, and that was a record over the last 15+ years, I think
@@mkay1957 You are absolutely correct! Just take a look at any of the pole day qualifying videos from the 1950's through the 1970's and the place was packed. In fact, many people who couldn't get Race Tickets would go to qualifying B/C it was, to them, just as exciting as Race Day. Mr. Tony Hulman knew exactly how to run the Speedway and all that the "Month of May" entailed. T.G. (grand son?) Not so much. In fact if the 500 wasn't such a huge piece of Memorial Day Americana, T.G. could easily have strangled the Indianapolis 500 Mile Race to "Death."
FTG.... we're still dealing with the effects of the split. But it's getting better.
Great video! Villeneuve had me fooled for a long time that year. He kept asking me to reheat and redesign the grips on his wheel. BUT, after a while I noticed that when I handed him the wheel for fine-tuning the grip, he didn't move the material at all...hmmm. That's when I figured out that he was just using up my time so the OTHER drivers wouldn't get any fine-tuning or be able to get their wheel converted over to PersonaGrip.
In '95, I already had a year under my belt using my new, 4"-wide 94M material...prior to that I was plastic welding my 1"-wide strips. However, in some cases, the welds would separate after hard use, and a driver complained suggesting that I either fix it, or he wouldn't use PersonaGrip anymore. That's when I invested in new tooling to extrude the new 4"-wide 94M material that could ENCAPSULATE the entire underlisting to avoid separation.
Anyway, my Ser.#152 for Scott Brayton shows up nicely early in the video (1:21s), and you can see how I accommodated his shuffle steering method with material extending upward beyond his Home Position. At 9:20s, you can see Ser.#151 on Michael's car...earlier that year, I made him Ser.#143, but he wanted an oval-specific design for the 500.
Thank you!!! I absolutely love comments like this. People who lived these moments that I revisit. Truly awesome. Thank you for sharing this 👍
@@Demise90Racing, you're more than welcome. Now that I'm older and PersonaGrip has opened doors to seeing things that many never get to see, I feel it's my honor to be able share some of those key moments that often go unnoticed...and, boy are there stories!
I was in turn 3 for this race. Brings back fond memories. I miss the old CART days.
In my opinion, this was one of the more controversial Indy 500. Along with Jacques draconian 2-lap penalty, Bobby Rahal would receive a stop and go penalty that would put him down the field, where he would eventually finish 3rd. Rahal would verbally state his displeasure with the USAC officials, as he had a chance to win the 500 a second time. Scott Goodyear on the other hand, clearly made a bone-headed mistake (Kind of wish Goodyear would've won the 97 race, but that one was a controversial race, too). It's just impressive that Jacques was able to overcome the penalty and win, Clearly showed his then talent, as he was the runner-up in his rookie year in 94, and was the only driver still on the lead lap with Little Al that year.
Wasn't 97 the year Indy had 35 on the grid?
@@rosarioyeen1371 I believe so
The pace car wasn't right all day.
Wasn't Good years fault.
He got screwed over.
The pace car was never up to speed all day on the restarts.
I’ll say this once again. I love this channel. You are doing great work. Solid narration, and you always pick good races. Loving every thing you do from nascar to Indy.
Thank you so much. I really appreciate that. I do my best haha
Nice to revisit this one!
It's too bad Jacques entered again later on. If he had just left it, he would have had a record of never finishing lower than second in the 500.
Gotta love tossin a bird at 220mph...lol. Boss move
Golden Age Of Indianapolis 500 From 1970 To 1993 Thanks For Uploading
I totally respect your comment Jeffrey. But, for me anyways, the real Golden Era was 1950's through the end of the 1980's. (Maybe even 1992 & 1992, as well.)
I'll add that ABC-TV Sports was marvelous with its coverage. I like how the announcing crew were measured in the pace of their speaking; all the while keeping it infused with excitement, with their commentary; unlike the competitive _yak-fest_ it has become with NBC-TV's announcing crew.
Then we kinda revisited the golden age from 1997 to 2001.
Man thanks for posting this. Those CART formula IndyCars were so great looking and the sound they made was so cool! Even the IRL used the CART formila cars in 1996 when Arie set the lIndy Lap speed record that only now is in danger of being surpaased.
I'm wondering what a current car could do with road course boost levels. I'm also wondering how the super capacitor next year is going to work on ovals or if they'd have to qualify without it.
@@danielhenderson8316 Lets hope they allow the hybrid for qualifying next May. I understand they may not have access to 900+ bhp, but let's see what happens. I am sure there will be lots of testing before they make any decisions.
Awesome race. I remember this vividly. I was also totally baffled about how Jacques kept getting laps back., but it makes a lot more sense looking back now.
after going through the fours hours of footage I couldn't find either how Jacques got his laps back, but there was one yellow where Paul Page mentioned that Villenuve was only one lap down
No wonder they call this race Indy 505.
#1 is a product of JV having two laps deleted electronically rather than being parked in the pit for two laps. Jacques was still third on the road. A caution came out, the leaders pitted, and JV did not. There were no wavearounds, so JV restarted in front of the leaders. Stefan Johannson brought out the yellow only a couple of laps later with his punctured tire, and JV was able to make up the lap completely.
#2 was the product of the Ford engine getting excellent fuel mileage, and JV risking it by running extra lean. He caught the yellow for Ribeiro perfectly timed where the leaders had pitted and JV had not yet.
The comparison I like to refer to is Luyendyk who had one of the fastest cars and went a lap down, but spent the entire race fighting to earn the lap back because his Menard Buick engine was thirsty and he couldn't possibly stretch the fuel the way Jacques was able to.
Thanks for covering this! I didn't start watching Indy until 2018 so these historical videos allow me to know what the history of all of these amazing eras were like.
Something I love doing is finding a playlist on UA-cam of the older CART races and run them on my TV while I go to sleep. Since I can't sleep to dead quiet, at least I'll enjoy myself while.
Wow, great recap. I was genuinely on the edge of my seat.
Villeneuve was an absolute legend in the 90's
Villeneuve jumped ship at the right time, too. Winning the IndyCar championship at the end of ‘95, then moved to Formula One in ‘96. Just in time before the split.
@@effend446 that's also true
Crazy fact about Fox's crash: He actually didn't break his legs in the accident. He had head injuries from being hit by some of the debris from his car and that's what ended his career. He was in a coma for 5 (i think) days and also had to have surgery to remove a blood clot from his brain. He was unfortunately killed in 2000, in a head on collision on a highway, in New Zealand.
Exactly correct @sennadesillva. Stan was a really good guy and he used to bring many people afflicted with "Closed Head Trauma" to the Speedway during the month of May and treat them to guided tours of Gasoline Alley so that they could see the side of this Great Event of Americana in a way that they may never experienced! RIP Stan, you were "The Hero" to many of my friends who were USAC Midget Racing Fans where you left you mark in racing history!
I heard he became an alcoholic which is a shame.
Always thought this was a very underrated 500. Sadness for Goodyear but the happiness for Villenueve too. Talk about a mixed-up bag of emotions lol
I'd say goodyear was lucky enough to be stopped scored. Most people who ignoring black flag like that would got banned for next race aside from getting disqualified and also hefty amount of fine too.
I thought was funny that Scott Goodyear thought he was in the right but his wife knew that he blew it
@@homeperson11244 I have believed from that fateful day until now that Scott Goodyear should have won this race. He planned his last restart the way that former greats of the Indy 500 would have done it. IMO, the error was not Scott's it was who ever the H3LL was "driving" the pace car. He's crawling along at, what 110 mph?!? At any rate, a ridiculously SLOW pace and he should have been turning on to Pit Entrance by the time Scott and the field pulled on to the front stretch. I know that staying out and ignoring the "Black Flag" was the death knell for Our Canadian Hero but, as usual USAC timing and scoring, together with an "Asleep at the Wheel" Pace Car Driver(?) absolutely robbed victory from the very driver who deserved to win His first Indianapolis 500. "He got jobbed" is too mild a description...He was "Screwed!"
@@timford3599 which is why i think that's why Goodyear wasn't punished even more for that accident, USAC cucked it out and the way they had less respect after previous year's Penske domination. Whilst that somewhat true, had Goodyear serve the penalty, he would be atleast 6th or 7th which while it was still heartbreaking, he could be battle for 5th in which point was still counted towards CART Championship.
@@timford3599 This is a braindead comment since the official investigation showed the pace car was driving at... get this... the speed the pacecar was supposed to be driving at as per the rules and regulations on the day. So no, the pace car wasn't going slow, the pace car was going the correct speed as per the rules. Goodyear tried to cheat and lost. Too bad so sad. Maybe he shouldn't have cheated, he probably could've won on pure pace. But he did cheat, and Villeneuve followed the rules, and he rightfully won. They all knew the rules, that's why no one else passed Villeneuve on the restart when he checked up. Every other driver in the field knew the rule was you had to remain behind the pace car on the restart until it was in pit road. Every single driver remembered that rule, EXCEPT Goodyear, who conveniently forgot it and gained a 10 second advantage because of it. If everyone else in a car that day remembered the rule and Goodyear didn't, Goodyear didn't deserve to win.
the CART series was actually as interesting to me as F1 at the time...they had built a legitimate open wheel series that attracted the likes of Emmo and Mansell and others...Tony George destroyed the race and I have never come back to it...after never having missed a race in my life....Today indycar racing is so meh....that it is hard to believe it still exists....
It's actually gotten better man. There's alot of talent and good racing. Trust me I agree with you on almost everything accept about the last 3 years it has definitely picked back up.
@@anthonypforr6463 Agreed. The racing is the best racing product in the world right now it seems.
@@anthonypforr6463 The last time I watched there was something that had viewers/fans vote for who should get some kind of power boost....that really turned me off...but I will check it out again....but like F1, I have been watching a ton of old CART races online!!! Thanks!!!
@@jmartinez27671 yeah I watch the classics also lol
@@anthonypforr6463 I guess you never know when you’re in a “golden age” but the mid 80’s to late 90’s was really something….F1 had Senna Prost Mansell Piquet Hakkinen and a supporting cast that included Berger, Alesi, and (dare I say it) Brundle….CART had Andretti x 2, Emmo, Sullivan, the house of Unser, Mears, and the Euro invasion….AND we had IMSA in its heyday AND group C in Europe….it was a more civilized time….btw….and in spite of all I’ve said on this post….wow what an amazing qualifying this AM in Monaco!!!
This was the last year of the older type of the 500. It was not at all unusual for early leaders of the race to be already lapping backmarkers within 10-15 laps of green-flag racing, and there was frequently a ton of attrition -- if more than 15 cars out of the original 33 survived all 500 miles, it was a great year for reliability.
Nowadays, you'll see 20-23 cars on the lead lap even in the late stages of the 500, and 27-29 still running at the checkered flag's appearance. It is much more competitive racing these days.
Yes .but it's really hard to pass anyone now because the cats are underpowered.
But the field is a lot closer from front to back.
Imagine the split never happened ...
Tony George was planning the IRL back in 1991 years before Andrew Craig came on the CART board. However he wanted a new engine rule put in place for the Indy 500 back then.
If no one had listened to Tony George's drunk voice back then, Indycar would be bigger than Nascar right now
@@wendigockel They would've probably bought F1 back in 1998 if the split didn't screw things up.
@Robert Musgrave Tony was just so misguided. Focused on the wrong shit all the time. They were literally racing ovals in Japan, Germany, UK, and Brazil. Open wheel Indycar racing was spreading and he just had to mess with it. And yet some will say "he saved indycar racing." Yet all he did was bankrupt everyone, copy CART. Then sell it back to one of the Cart owners? What a dumbass
FTG
I was there for this great race. Seated in middle of turn three I saw all re-starts happened about 1/3 of the way into turn 3. Even at that point the pace car barely exited from the racing surface before leader flew by.
On the last re-start Goodyear accelerated before even arriving at turn three, no way that the pace car would not be passed. The crowd screamed, they all knew he had lost the race.
The field always gave the pace car the same space at half distance on back straight. Goodyear flat blew it, pace car held consistent speed and mid straight starting gap all day.
I was there as well with my friends. We were at the top row of the old grandstands inside of turn one. Those have since been torn down to make way for the road course. I remember the last restart and seeing Scott Goodyear come flying past through turn one with a HUGE lead and daylight between him and Villeneuve and telling the fellow standing next to me "Something's wrong! NOBODY gets that big of a lead on a restart!" Turns out I was right and the black flag came out for Scott as noted in the video. He ignored it and paid the price.
Overall it was a weird day because it seemed whoever led the race caught some sort of bad karma. Luyendyk with possible engine problems and causing a yellow flag flipping someone The Bird, Villeneuve not knowing he was the leader, passing the pace car, and getting penalized, Andretti clouting the wall trying to pass slower traffic, Herta and Pruett getting into crashes, and finally Goodyear shooting himself in the foot passing the pace car.
PS, if you watch the last restart you can see Goodyear lay a patch of rubber on the backstretch heading into turn three. 😧
I also sat in turn 3 at this race in the middle of the turn on the inside and couldn't see that much of the track and basicly watched the cars enter the turn and exit the turn and remember watching Jimmy Vasser hit the outside wall as he was exiting turn 3 late in the race.
Yep..he jumped that restart.
We were sitting at the exit of turn 3.
Great vid! Those static feed/VHS transitions are a smart editing detail.
Thank you. I've been doing that as I really like that VHS effect. Surprisingly those transitions are part of a horror film pack, but it just fits with these 90's races.
One correction that ABC missed as well. Boesel grenaded his engine and oiled down the track, which is what most probably caused Pruett to hit the wall.
I believe the Indy 500 is now growing. I have been going since 2000, and now it’s gotten bigger and better since 2016 100th running
Recently found your channel and I'm absolutely loving it. Thank you for making these videos.
Thank you for watching. I appreciate it 👍
I was at this race and never understood why Goodyear jumped the start like that. He had enough car that J.V. never would've been able to catch him. Real shame. Not to mention that I had Goodyear in my office pool that year......FML!!!
We were there too.
They evidently were having problems with the pace car.
It wasn't getting up to speed on the restarts.
They basically took this race from Goodyear.
Yes he passed the pace car because it was going way too slow
Those cars looked so good 🤩
Lately with the L being put in RLL, I've seen this race get brought up pretty frequently on reddit, so this is a very timely video
Tony George's destruction of American open wheel racing has still not recovered. He is finally out of the picture and Roger Penske has done wonders to continue the rebuilding of IndyCar. While I really enjoy IndyCar, the series and the Indy500 are not at CART standards.
just say you want to rub paul tracy in an impure way.....m.
Hit the nail right on the head. I was a CART super fan up until the break up. Switched to F1 and only started watching Indycar again in the last few years.
I agree. I used to NEVER MISS a CART race. Now I don’t even catch the Indy 500 unless I remember which is rare
I switched to F1 and endurance racing like LeMans
I know tony George and I will be sure to let him know because he is my grandpa
I used to go to Mid-Ohio every year, hit Road America a few times, and Indy twice. Now, I haven’t even watched an IRL/whatever it is now on TV in decades.
I didn't even watch this race, I was busy that day, but I was following Indycat that year. May 1994 got me interested in motorsports after a 5 year absence....living under a rock....Senna died and Jacques finished 2nd at Indy. I remembered Senna but missed the glory years, I remeber him as a controversial young driver....and I thought that Jacques was actually Gilles' brother, also named Jacques..."oh cool he finally got a good car".....no that's Gilles' son...."Damn! That's awesome! He's going to win next year." ....and I fully believed that, to the point that I felt I didn't need to watch the race anyway, I already knew who was going to win....and well...
That crowd looks massive. Half those grandstands arent ever opened anymore and theyre all packed
No ..that's for NASCAR.
Seats on the inside of the track in the turns were removed for the road course track
Seats have been added on the outside of the track and on the inside of the front stretch.
But race doesn't sell out anymore except for in 2016.
100th running.
I was there in our seats we have always had on top of turn two. It was really scary to see the car break in half!
For scott Goodyear just bad luck one in1992 with 3 years later being the most heartbreaking
He's still smarting, I'm sure
@@edwardlazich1140 Absolutely! He didn't deserve that "Black Flag" and he was right to NOT pull on to Pit Road.
And don't forget 1997. The third heartbrake. USAC screwed the last restart and Goodyear didn't have chance to battle Arie Luyendyk.
Sad for him, but he has only himself to blame.
CART never sanctioned the 500.
They only provided teams and drivers for the event.
After my eardrums just took a beating with the NBC announcing crew from the 2023 Indy 500 TV shout-fest, it is nice to return here to get some snippets of the incomparable quality of Paul Page doing the announcing duties with a past Indy 500.
The last real Indy 500...
Then greed and stupidity resulted in, basically, a spec series. But on a side note, this year's Indy 500 has already been insane, and will be more so by the end of it.
The Cart cars themselves ran in 96 but it was IRL. 97 was your spec racing.
@@DrBIeed Not saying what they ran in the year after, I was saying what it ended up being after it was all over.
I don't know if it was the best 500. But it is a great one. That is my favorite era of the series, love the cars, and the Players team was such a great paint scheme.
That TV station in Montgomery, Alabama had a great callsign to flash on screen when a car was stopping: WHOA. 🤣
I Remember Watching This One In Real Time. Did Scott Pruitt Crash In The Same Place As Swede Savage in '73? Thank You For The Upload.
This was the first time I watched the Indy 500. At that time I was 10 years old and I could watch it by SBT's Brazilian broadcast. I remember of each detail of that race: since Stan Fox and Eddie Cheever Jr. crash at start, the stupid decision of Scott Goodyear in overtake the pace car before of the restart 11 laps to go, and until twin checkred flag for Jacques Villeneuve.
17:35 dude jumping off that stand, with a load in his dralls....he was worried
Kind of ironic that when the IRL was formed, one of the complaints from the "purists" was that 'them durn furriners', especially 'them durn Braziallians' were taking over American racing. They said we need to go back to the roots of American racing, American drivers on ovals. So here we are. Last time an American won the 500 was Rossi in 2016 and the current Indy Car schedule has 12 road courses, just 4 ovals and my two favorite ovals, Milwaukee and Nazareth are gone forever. So other than diminish the popularity of open wheel racing, what did Tony George accomplish?
Well its rumored Milwaukee could be coming back next year but I will hold my breath until its official
So true. I was at the 93 race and many around me booed Emmo. It was disgusting. The anti American sentiment stoked by Tony.
Racers and racing are universal the winner to be celebrated.
@@ltjjenkins It wasn't any Tony George anti-US sentiment that the crowd was booing Emmo, it was refusing to drink the milk after winning the 1993 Indy 500. He'd probably be OK if he drank the milk and then promoted farm. The crowd still booed him in 2008 driving the pace car. It wasn't because he was a for-r-ner...
@@danielhenderson8316 I was there.
And by the way did you boo rahal in 86 when he sipped beer before the milk- a labeled sponsor before the milk.
Check the tape.
@@ltjjenkins Nope. He still drank the milk. For you to be correct, you'd have to explain why Emerson wasn't booed in 1988 and why Arie Luyendyk wasn't booed in 1990 for your xenophobic claim to hold water (or milk).
This Indy 500 wasn't the only exciting race that day as at the Coke 600 in Charlotte, there were 32 lead changes. That Coke 600 ended when Bobby Labonte spun Dale Earnhardt with 16 laps to go & basically ran a race of maximum fuel conservation to the end for his first Cup Series win & JGR's first Coke 600 win.
Folks forget that the CART cars were still used in the 96 season and that was the year all of the records were broke. 97 was the first year for the open wheel NASCAR.
It’s crazy to see a time where a crash meant tires flying off those cars.
Makes what happened this past weekend all that more shocking
Great video!
In the last few years you can't fault the quality and competition, but Indy still desperately misses chassis variety and real engine competition. One day...
That makes it a driver's series, the most important nut is behind the steering wheel
@AJBa83; You have thrown the Dart and Hit the Bulls Eye. I've been a die hard fan of this race since 1961 (as well as an ardent student of almost all things Indy 500 ever since) and , IMO the very reason that had always made the 500 such a unique and exciting event was the fact that almost all of the teams brought a "One Off" Race car design and different engines. Since 1997 "The Indy Racing League" became a Spec Series and it changed things forever, not always for the better.
@@timford3599 Agreed. Build a car within specifications and run it. That brought about the NOVI.s, the STP Turbine cars, front engine, rear engine, front wheel drive, rear wheel drive, four wheel drive, and a host of other innovations to the race. Some were more successful than others, but it always brought interest and excitement to the 500.
Right now, the only manufacturer that fine with chassis competition is Dallara. When they were taking bids on the DW12, everyone else wanted exclusivity.
Yeah- nothing but cookie-cutter cars these days.
The rules back then were very loose and not a definite cut and dry but man that was the best pass of the day lol
ZOOOOM
LOL, Top Comment! Very Funny!!!
Man looking at this, I'm happy Indycar allows lapped cars between the Pace Car and the leader to get waved by. It always should be the leader who does the restart
As for the field, throughout the early-1990s, past, present and future F1 champions joined IndyCars' greatest.... and thanks to the IRL and CART off track mismanagement, it all came to a screeching halt with the split!
Arie Luyendyk is such a legend. 2 time winner, track speed record holder, and the 220 mph middle finger to top it off hahaha.
That's 1997 Formula 1 World Champion Jacques Villeneuve to you
Bobby Unser is so funny because no matter how badly a driver breaks the rules he will defend them no matter what. 😂
Proper single seat speedway cars these cart chasis were.
I'm not up on the CART Indy 500 rules of the day, but after such a jumbled field beyond the first row, as well as the carnage almost immediately, wouldn't it have been better to have red flagged the race and have had a totally new start AFTER THE TRACK HAD BEEN PROPERLY CLEARED AND CLEANED??
THANKS!
Today the standards are much higher for being in formation at the start. Despite being part of the CART season, the Indy 500 had a unique set of rules as it was sanctioned by USAC still. But once the green flag was waived the race is official and won't be restarted. The only time CART did a restart like that was the 1996 US 500 at Michigan.That race became CART's race to compete with the Indy 500 when the IRL took over the Indy 500 in 1996. But in that scenario the cars wrecked before making it to the line, therefore not officially starting the race.
I wouldn't say this was the last REAL Indy 500, but I will say it was that the distinct character of the race changed after this. That's hard to explain but the feel definitely changed after this. Things sort of came back in the 2000's and it's OK now, but I think the cars are ugly and the spec chassis concept just doesn't give it the same appeal.
@crusherbmx, Every word of your comment is absolutely true. I had the most sinking feeling between the 1995 & 96 races. I t seemed to me that The Indianapolis 500 had lost its soul and lost its allure. As much as I have loved everything about the 500 for over 60 years, it just didn't feel the same during the "Split Years."
Back before ESPN quit being a great sports network they did a special about "The Split." It followed families torn apart due to their allegiance
to either the IRL or Cart. It was an excellent documentary and it pretty much summed up my conflicted feelings at the time. In the end, like AJ Foyt I cast my lot to the IRL, not b/c of T.G. but rather in spite of him. IMO it was the "Bone Head" move of the Twentieth Century (Sports Wise.) PS, I'm pretty sure that it's still available on UA-cam. It's definitely worth a watch. Very well written and produced!
As i write, there is just 11 hours to the start of the most exciting sporting event of the year. I cant wait! 😊
Maybe the best Indy 500 of the last 40 years. The ‘92 race also up for consideration.
On my list the top is 1991, 1992, 1998, 1999 and 2001. Love every bit of them.
🔥🔥🔥🔥 Wow!!! That was spectacular 🤯🤯🤯 what an incredible race. Just unreal. The absolute jaw dropping drama a side, the series was more interesting due to more technical involvement (Penske use to make own chassis) and the variability of engines (Buick V6 2 valve) 😎😎😎 thanks for sharing 👍👍👍💪💪💪
'95 was one of the peak events however the recent past has been amping up interest and excitement that 'should' continue with the updated power units coming into play...would like to see more entrants vying for the grid though somewhat improbable
Back when a shot from the in-car cam still added a WOW factor to the TV coverage.
You should cover Lloyd Ruby and his chances to win the Indy 500, but never happened
That is one of the most heart wrenching stories of the 500, 1960's to near the end of the 1970's. Lloyd Ruby was one of the greatest drivers in the storied history of the Indy 500! Good call Ian!
This was the last real 500. It wasn't difficult to pick a side when FTG took his ball and went home. Even after his experiment failed and what was left of CART/ CCWS merged with The IRL, it was way too late, the good name of Indy had been forever ruined by the inheritor. Roger Penske has made it a bit better, but we'll never get back to 1995.
My dad was there on the infield between turn 3 and 4 and he says the pacecar slowed up due to the huge gap that Goodyear had out between the two on the backstretch.....tough to say but at least a good Canadian boy won anyhow!
Villeneuve probably one of the best drivers, I would probably put in my book. At this point I mean he’s won the Indy 500 and a title in F1
How about Jimmy Clark?
one of those drivers who burns very brightly , but quickly fades away . doesn't discount any of his immense achievements in those short few years at his peak.
Ah, yes, the 1995 Indy 505
So at 500 miles Goodyear is the winner?
This is probably the single race I have re-watched the most times in my life. I know a lot of people are bothered by how it ended, and that's understandable, but let's remember that USAC's officiating was a joke for many years and 1995 was no exception. Left to rule over just one top-level race all year, USAC always seemed to want to play god when those "wayward" CART teams rolled back into town and had to play by their rules in order to play in their sandbox, and 1995 just happened to be both the final year of the two organizations' uneasy truce and the year USAC was itching the hardest to mash that "smite" button and do some arbitrary damage. Scott Goodyear wasn't the first to get slapped by a questionable call that day...the problem for him was that he was the last, so he didn't have a chance to recover from it. But considering both Villenueve and Rahal, who ended up first and third, had also bounced back from dumb USAC calls, the end result wasn't nearly as unfair as it could have been.
I don't see how anyone can say Goodyear got a questionable call. He barely missed the pace car and completely messed up the restart. Anyone could see he gained an unfair advantage over Villeneuve because of it and he broke the rules.
@@CharlesFreck well, a couple things. In the end, it doesn’t make Goodyear totally blameless (you can actually see the rubber he lays down with his rolling burnout, so it’s clear his nerves get the better of him) but on the other hand:
-the pace car took off and drove away, and was well off the racing line by the time Goodyear caught it. CART’s restart procedure was more lenient in terms of when the pace car becomes irrelevant, so to some extent this is an artifact of the two sanctioning bodies problem.
- The problem could have been solved without upending the results. Even forgetting about the pace car itself, that was a huge jump Goodyear got on the cars behind him. It’s reasonable to say it was not a clean start, but it’s easy to imagine either of CART’s starters (Nick Fornoro until 1993, or Jim Swintal at this point) waving off the restart and making them do it again. Instead Duane Sweeney gave the green anyway, and then USAC waited a lap or two to decide to penalize him.
- Goodyear didn’t help himself by staying out, as it happens, but Steve Horne was under the impression USAC had given back the two laps they took away from Villeneuve earlier, and given that assumption, rolling the dice and hoping for a similar act of mercy starts to make sense. Unfortunately for Horne and Goodyear, that wasn’t what had happened with Villeneuve anyway.
@de-faultde-fault6847 I would not say it was off the racing line, Goodyear misses the pace car by a few cm. And yes, they should've cancelled the restart. But they didn't. But the fact is that Goodyear knew he was in the wrong. Because instead of saying "I thought the pace car was going faster" or complaining about the way it was handled, he made claims that were easily proven to be lies (saying he saw the green indicating it was okay to restart). The fact he lied shows he knew for a fact he'd broken the rules, because if he thought he was in the right he wouldn't have needed to lie. He got nervous and jumped the restart and it cost him the win. That's a part of racing, you can't choke 7 laps from the end of one the 3 most prestigious races in the world if you're of the quality required to win. In the same moment he choked and lost, Villeneuve had the presence of mind to realise he needed to stay behind the pace car, despite the fact it meant dropping 10 seconds to the race leader. That's why he won and Goodyear lost, being able to make the right decision under immense pressure.
@@CharlesFreckAnd that's why Villeneuve was picked up by Williams and Goodyear never again got a full time ride in CART.
1996 was actually the last race with the cool engines and cars even though it was an IRL race.
Current version of the race leaves a lot to be desired.
Spec cars and spec engines just don't do it for me.
My dad took me to this race. I was 18 years old and had no idea my first and only Indy 500 would be the last of the real Indy cars to run the race. Tony George ruined Indy Car in 1996 with his new league only running on ovals and slower NA engines. Glad I saw the best before it was too late.
as someone who has watched since the late 80s.....and this was the first ive ever attended.....this is a race on the rise.....lot 2 for life
What a great race. I remember being on the edge of my seat watching this.
After watching this again I have to wonder though, WTF was Arie Luyendyk doing at the end? Dude was right up JVs ass and then passes him at the finish?
Maybe he setting the tone for the spilt that was being planned as he was one of the big names than came over to the IRL.
This was one of the few races I missed since the late '80's but I watched it live from home. I have no idea what Goodyear was thinking by going when he did. Nonetheless, I was so hoping he would have won, since I did not care for Jacques nor the team he drove for. So many crashes that I had forgotten about over the years. Also, what the hell was Tony thinking that the series needed that it did not already have? Big-time sponsors, star drivers, still bigger than Nascar in 1995. Then it went to shit.
geeezuz his legs were hanging out that looked like F! in the 70's or even 60's as a sport freak I really would have been pissed at luyendyk ruining JV beautiful photo #1 finish, been nice to hear the final interview of JV
Legendary Indianapolis 505
Saying Jacques Villeneuve went two laps down is somewhat of a mistake, he had two laps removed, he actually ran 202 laps total.
I will never understand what Goodyear was thinking when he blew past that pace car. At that time he had been competing in American racing for a long time so he totally knew he shouldn't do that. What a stupid way to lose this race.
I am still a little amazed JV kept a cool head and hit the brakes to avoid doing a dumb thing. He never struck me as a particularly smart driver. On this day he was definitely smarter than Goodyear though, lol.
Goodyear was suppose to answer the Black Flag within 3 laps and for some reason the Pace Car was really slow right before the restarts all day long
Penalty was absolutely justified btw. Goodyear simply went full speed way too early
If he'd waited till turn 4 to nail the gas he still would have passed the pace car. Wtf was the pace car driver doing?
@@jimr549 But isn't it drivers/teams responsibility to watch that the pace car is out of the way before going full speed. At least as an European that's what I see happening in F1 where they radio the driver to tell that the safety car is in the pits
These boys about passed the pace car on every start/restart.
It’s definitely the peak of the Indy 500. It’ll never get bigger than this race no matter how successful the current Indycar championship gets because even if the series becomes more popular than it was in 1995, they’re now racing aeroscreen cars which are just lame/inferior compared to pure open-wheel open-cockpit cars.
Jacques Villeneuve I remember that legend CART ..F1
From my perspective, 1995 was the end of the Indy 500 as the greatest race. When it switched to IRL it became just another race. Up until 1995 the drivers were household names. After 1995 I couldn't tell you any of the names of the drivers. They went from faster cars to slower cars. It should go down in history as professional sports biggest blunders of all time. Cart was an awesome series and now it's gone. I don't even watch racing anymore, NASCAR sucks and now Formula 1 sucks. I'd rather watch reruns of when racing wasn't a bunch of limp wristed pussies. At least there's still the Isle of Man TT
1995 = 1 BILLION dollars in sponsorship. 2023 = 300 million. You tell me?
In addition, there were 50 entries vying for the 33 spots in 1995.
In 2023, there were 34 entries for the Indy 500.
'[sarcasm] Such heightened drama on whom would make the field in 2023.'
@@bloqk16 ....All that money....time and expense to send a guy and his team packin. I understand and love the 500 and the series but it makes more sense to let them race instead of have this artificial made up gimmicky shit. I HATE what racing has become .
Indy without a Penske car after they dominated the 94 race
🙌🏾🙌🏾🙌🏾
the thing with Penske was that their chassis sucked at this track but they were not aware of it because of the 500I engine.
They tried PC23 chassis in 1995 and it was as bad as the newer PC24.
If you read Al Unser Jr's biography, after they rehired Paul Tracy, he did a post season test at Indy with a 95 chassis and a 94 floor and went 231 on his first lap. Turned out that the Penske team didn't correctly level out their garage floor so all of their suspension settings were being put in incorrectly. It's also why they couldn't get any speed out of the Lola's even with cashing in a favor with Bobby Rahal to help them out.
@@danielhenderson8316 The other detail that the team engineers said years ago via Nigel Beresford on the Autosport forum, and which Al's book confirms, is Emerson had sent them in a setup direction with a stiff front roll bar. It worked great at Phoenix. But doing this at Indy caused a great deal of understeer. So the team piled on front wing, which overpowered the effect of the rollbar, but also caused oversteer on turn-in. The result is drivers who no longer trust the car, and they never thought to change the roll bar until qualifying had been completed.
The first ever indy 505 (Villeneuve won from two laps down)
I remember this well, it really solidified my view of Tony George being corrupt, even before the split.
I believe The pace car waved Villeneuve by, not the other way around. Then to rectify it, they blamed his team and penalty'd him 2 laps; effectively making him +1 - 2 = 1 lap down.
He didn't pass it twice.
Good call on the 2 Scotts passing the pace car the 1st time around.
I believe to rectify this, the pace car was instructed to slow down too much, to deliberately penalize Scott Goodyear the next time. Bobby Unser even said it went too slow, and even seen in the footage at 18:44, Goodyear had slowed and distanced the field alot, but then you see the pace car entering turn 4 at a snail's pace, when it should have been near the pits by then.
I won't call the green flag waiver as part of a conspiracy, as he was Consistently doing a lousy job all race.
That wasn't bad luck, controversial, or a conspiracy to get Goodyear out of the winners circle. It was dude being a goddamn idiot and clearly breaking a well-known rule! I always forget Jacque won the 500. He's mostly remembered as a f1 world champion who turned into a great big weirdo 😜
Thoughts on your comment: NO to the first part and YES to the second part.
Or batshit crazy to me
No controversy! Goodyear blew off the pace car. It doesn't matter if the pace car was too slow. He knew the rules and took off way too soon. He deserved the penalty.
Ari's engine issue is typical. The car would have been fine with the misfire if it never had to stop. The minute it comes in and stops, it burns a piston and it's never the same.
The Indy 500 is nowhere near the level it hit in the mid 90's prior to the split. People now really cannot grasp the difference. While the TV numbers and current qualifying format really paint a pretty good picture at the stark difference in popularity of the event between then and now, it's really difficult to grasp how popular the Indy 500 was by 1995. It really isn't close when you consider a few facts. Primarily was the scheduling of all of the activities leading up to the race: Pole day drew crowds of 200K regularly. Bump day often drew in 60k-100k people. Let's just say, the Indy GP that currently kicks off activities in May has yet to draw that many people. Additionally it should be noted that the current qualifying format for the 500 was installed to try and "raise excitement again for qualifying" for the 500. That excitement had long been dead since the infamous Tony George single handedly destroyed Indycar racing. As mentioned above, the TV numbers bear that out. Prior to the split, the Indy 500 ALWAYS beat the Daytona 500 for TV viewership and never had a nielsen rating below 8.5. Then the split happened and the numbers dropped precipitously. They continued to do so until hitting their current low level. More importantly, those numbers really do reflect the pulse of the race. In 1995, every major sports media outlet sent reporters to the race and it was difficult to get media passes. The race was so popular that tickets for the race often sold out within a week of the previous years running of the race. You had to get on a waitlist for tickets and it often took a couple of years before you got a chance to buy tickets. That's how popular Indy was. So yeah, it's not even close to that now. But we can always hope that will change.
SO sad but i agree with everything your saying!
The city itself was more into it than they are now. People would decorate their houses and have racing memorabilia in their garages, and you'd see last year's pace cars driving around town. By the time I moved away in 2011, all of that was gone, and in my few visits back in May it has been a mere shadow of what it was in the mid 90s and before.
At this point, I struggle to even watch it. It's no longer a festival of speed. It feels obligatory, run for tradition's sake and not much more.
/curmudgeon
Dude scott not only blew the doors off the pace car, he nearly SMASHED into it!
actually saw a door get blown off as Bruce Jenner's Mustang get passed by a Jaguar GTP car might have '87
If that numbskull driving(?) the pace car would have known what the H3LL he was supposed to be doing then the "Grunts @ USAC" wouldn't have had ANY reason to steal the victory from Scott Goodyear. USAC totally "Screwed" him!
‘95 was a great 500 and made up for the snooze-fest of ‘94
Modern Indycar has no soul.
1995 was 1st Indy 500. This year will be number 26
Jacques actually made up TWO laps during the race. He actually ran 202 laps.
It was at that era exciting, not that ugly chassis today. Beautull Cars then. When they stood still they already looked fast.
I completely agree. Late 80's to Early 2000's CART cars are the best looking racecars of all time.
It wasn't *that* much of a shock that the Penske cars failed to qualify.
The chassis itself from the season before was actually pretty bad. It was the fact that they had 200bhp more than the next closest car that got them as fast as they were.
95 is easily a top 10 all time 500